


I'll Be Good

by Carmenlire



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Introspection, M/M, Magnus Bane Deserves Nice Things, Magnus Bane Has a Past, Morally Ambiguous Character, POV Magnus Bane
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 10:09:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmenlire/pseuds/Carmenlire
Summary: Sometimes he wakes up to discover that it’s going to be one ofthosedays. It’s a fact of any immortal’s life that as they grow older, their regrets grow in tandem. And sometimes, they can’t help but drown in memories.The air is cool as the morning breeze drifts over him. He barely feels it, though, too caught up in a past that on his best of days seems to drag him down.Today is not a best day.





	I'll Be Good

**Author's Note:**

> Song: I'll Be Good by Jaymes Young

Sometimes he wakes up to discover that it’s going to be one of _those_ days. It’s a fact of any immortal’s life that as they grow older, their regrets grow in tandem. And sometimes, they can’t help but drown in memories.

The air is cool as the morning breeze drifts over him. He barely feels it, though, too caught up in a past that on his best of days seems to drag him down.

Today is not a best day.

Today, hundreds of years accumulate, fast as lightning, to press down on shoulders he thought had broken under the burden decades ago. The weight of his sins, the depth of his folly, mock him. Instead of skyscrapers and early morning pedestrians, his eyes see a dirt path that leads to the ocean.

A blood-soaked rock. A burning village.

It’s the first in a long line of betrayals-- his most pervasive of ghosts-- and on days like this, it fairly sears into him, haunting him until he's afraid to close his eyes lest memories wrap around his throat and strangle him in a grip that's as merciless as he was once upon a time. 

Self-hatred burns so bright that it blinds him. He knows that he won’t be leaving the house today-- he doesn’t want to taint anyone with his regret, with his very soul that’s battered and bruised and hanging in tatters.

Not to mention that he won't be able look in the mirror long enough to get ready. The thought of seeing his face-- remembering it cast in cruelty-- and having to look into eyes that have seen things that would make most men mad is impossible. He bites his tongue to keep some vicious noise in that would sound like a whimper in the morning stillness.

He's not strong enough to face himself today.

When the weight of his past gets to be too much, he avoids mirrors-- any reflective surface that could show him the man capable of such destruction and deceit and cruelty.

There was a time, Magnus reflects, when he relished his demon heritage. He wandered the earth for decades and in certain parts of the world, there are still whispers of his name. They’re fearful mutterings and as often as not, they mention a companion with matching eyes that glinted with the same wicked brutality.

His hands clutch at the hard brick of the balcony’s ledge as he remembers reveling in the human's terror-- taunting them, provoking them so that he had a reason to show them just how powerful he could be and just how weak and pitiful they were to him.

Fear had been ecstasy to him and under Asmodeus’s tutelage, it had the same tainted edge as love.

Magnus’s misdeeds are too many to count. There’s blood on his hands that won’t ever wash away and he’s worked hard and long and with a sort of desperate fervor to become a man who can stand tall and proud with some semblance of happiness.

Still, there are always reminders. Some are deliberate-- the ivory figurine he’d pocketed after he’d snapped the neck of a priest who had tried to forcibly baptize him, burning his congregation to rubble afterwards to serve as both a warning and a declaration; the daguerreotype of a werewolf couple who’d had the audacity to challenge his father’s authority and by extension his own; a single franc he’d stolen from a beggar when he could just as easily have summoned anything he needed but hadn't-- because he was bored and the woman’s dismay had amused him as he’d watched her frantically pat her pockets and look for her last hope that was hidden in his waistcoat pocket.

Magnus’s name is bandied about in most circles and there’s a healthy dose of respect and awe to the tales. People from all over the world come to him now looking for help, knowing his reputation as a kind and fair man with almost inexhaustible resources.

It’s taken more work and countless pieces of his soul to earn that reputation, to build it brick by laborious brick until it overshadowed the fear and distaste that used to be synonymous with The Great Destruction.

Sometimes it’s not enough, though. Magnus has long lost count of how many lives he’s taken, how many sins have scarred his heart. When he wakes up on mornings where the weight of it all threatens to drag him straight into hell, there’s nothing but guilt and his own brand of fear that he’ll never be able to make up for what he’s done-- that he’s lying to everyone, that he deserves to rot for an eternity in penance.

There are other times still when the darkness beckons him back and he misses the feeling of being free, of selfishly indulging in every vice and act of wickedness that tempted him.

It’s times like those when the despair chokes him until he can almost feel the noose at his throat, harsh and absolute.

He made a promise to himself-- over half his life ago now-- that he would spend the rest of his days repenting for throwing himself in line with the devil. His control is legendary and Magnus has worked harder and longer than anyone will every know to quell his baser urges, to make himself into a man that people can trust and respect and maybe, perhaps, love.

As his thoughts turn, so does his head until Magnus is looking into his bedroom. He sees a mop of messy hair that’s scarcely visible in the pile of crimson sheets.

His chest warms a fraction at the sight. He breathes easier knowing that there is one person at least on this earth who knows every wicked, unforgivable deed he’s ever done but still sleeps soundly in his bed.

_Their_ bed.

Turning away from the city he found his dozenth chance in, Magnus heads inside to the one man who could bring him to his knees, if only he asked.

The morning sun shines through the windows, paints his love-- his salvation, his saving grace-- in gold. Magnus’s breath wrenches in his chest at his angel-- because no matter how much Alexander would roll his eyes or wrinkle his nose, Magnus can’t help but stare at the man he’d give the world for and think him the pinnacle of all that heaven has to offer.

Magnus would burn down the world for his husband and the thought doesn’t fill him with guilt or regret or any hint of remorse. It’s a guiding pillar of his life that Alec means more than all the gods and demons combined and Magnus would go to the ends of the earth to secure his love’s happiness.

He loves him all the more because he knows that Alexander would never ask such a thing of him, that the very thought of taking Magnus’s power and strength to destroy and torment is unfathomable.

Climbing under sheets warmed from a body he knows as well as his own, Magnus sighs and it’s deep, seems to heave from his very core.

Alec shuffles closer clumsily, still asleep and Magnus’s heart bleeds at the blind trust, the inherent devotion held in such a gesture.

Magnus is the very willing rag doll as Alec pulls him close, wrapping strong arms around him until he feels safe, until the weight of the world and a past he's bled himself dry for isn't quite so oppressive. When he feels lips against his chest, right over his heart, he shakes with the feeling that wracks him.

He’s a devil. A monster. But all monsters have weaknesses and his holds him close like a king amid treasure.

Squeezing his husband closer-- his love, his soulmate if he ever wanted to be irredeemably foolish-- Magnus sinks into the feeling of redemption and hope that settles into his gut like the warmest fire, that flares bright down his spine.

These days have grown farther and fewer between since he met Alexander. Alec loves him so hard that Magnus can’t help but wonder if maybe there’s not enough of his self and soul to scrape together until he’s worth the effort.

He wants to be worthy of Alec, doesn’t know what he would do if the day ever came and he wasn’t enough.

For the millionth time-- the billionth-- Magnus promises himself that he’ll work hard, every day, to be a man they can both be proud of, that they can both love.

_I’ll be good_, he whispers into Alec’s hair and swallows hard against the tears that spring at the guiding hope, his eternal wish.

As he drifts to sleep, he can’t help but think that there’s so much beauty in the world, had only he thought to look for it all those lifetimes ago.

If only he’d cared enough to try.

His hands are bloodied and his soul lays in ragged tatters. Days like these are hard, they’re so damned difficult that Magnus can’t catch his breath, can’t conceive of a world that wouldn’t want to shun him and punish him for his countless mistakes, his most depraved sins.

It’s the blessing and curse of his life to have an eternity of new dawns waiting for him. Today it’s a misery.

But tomorrow he has hope that it will be an absolution.

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr or twitter @carmenlire!


End file.
